This is what theatre is supposed to be: How Paula Vogels Indecent remembers a century of dramatic censorship – Toronto Star

From ashes they rise, opens Paula Vogels play Indecent, at the CAA Theatre on Yonge Street starting this Friday.

That opening moment is a haunting image a troupe of actors coated in dust, seemingly lost to history before this instant. The story then begins as we meet Lemml, the stage manager, who promises to tell us a story about the play that changed his life. The play in question? Sholem Aschs God of Vengeance, which in 1907 became the subject of Yiddish newspaper headlines in New York due to the plays strikingly contemporary lesbian plot line.

In 1907, God of Vengeance was called filthy, immoral and, yes, indecent for its content and thats where Vogels investigation into the plays history begins.

I read God of Vengeance when I was 22 years old, and it always stayed with me, said Vogel in an interview. It was an important play for me to read.

Fast forward 20 or 30 years, and I get a call from Rebecca Taichman, who for a directing project had directed a performance of the God of Vengeance obscenity trial and she asked if Id like to work with her. She would direct it, and I would write it.

I didnt just see this as a play about the obscenity trial, Vogel said. I tried a version just concentrating on the trial, and I thought it was kind of flat and not really getting at the issues of why this was shocking. So I went at it just from what I saw. And what I saw the moment she called me was a dusty theatre troupe rising from a kind of limbo in an attic room. I knew that was the play.

Indecent had its Broadway premiere in 2017 nearly 100 years after God of Vengeance hit the Great White Way in 1923. Indecent was Vogels Broadway debut, despite an illustrious playwriting premiere including a Pulitzer Prize for How I Learned to Drive.

Vogel made clear in our interview that while Taichman is credited as a co-creator in the printed version of the play, Vogel wrote every word of the text including those haunting stage directions.

If theres a word in the script thats a stage direction, thats coming from me, said Vogel.

On the other hand, you know, I would hand her a few pages, and say something like do a tour around the world in four scenes on the stage. And shed say, how do I do that? And I told her I didnt know thats her problem, said Vogel with a laugh.

I wrote it, but I feel very collaborative, she continued. Even with directors Ive never met who are doing my work (like Joel Greenberg, who is directing the Toronto production).

Part of what makes Indecent so special is its music while its not a musical, per se, its certainly a play with music that plays an integral part in the storytelling.

I immediately heard a Klezmer band as I was writing it, said Vogel, and I recorded over 600 Klezmer songs to find the songs I wanted. I selected all the music, and I always write to music musics very important to me it goes back to this Wagnerian notion of a total work of theatre. A total work of theatre always includes music and dance in some ways and movement.

Indecent, while weaving in music and dance, also pays homage to a long legacy of theatrical censorship from Edward Bonds Saved in 1965 to Sarah Kanes Blasted 30 years later. In the early 20th century, God of Vengeance was similarly reviled for its content and themes and through Indecent, Vogel has honoured this history of great work being smothered by its context.

Theres a long history of what I call benign censorship, said Vogel. You suppress someone through criticism and the marketplace. You cant say its illegal although before 1968 in England, you could say it was illegal but I think capitalist marketplaces do that benign censorship, through criticism, through marketing. There are so many writers not being done because what theyre saying isnt the status quo.

Vogel has spent the past few years working to make sure those writers rejecting the status quo can get produced and paid for their work, in an initiative titled Bard at the Gate.

Im in my third year of producing digital theatre of BIPOC writers in America, who are writing brilliant plays that are not being done by American theatres, said Vogel.

We have to have a resistance to the censorship going on. Were not looking at it as censorship because when we think of censorship, we think of book-burning in 1933. We think of the 1930s in Germany.

But I feel like we need to resist that. We need to create desire. Im hoping 18-year-olds start to watch these plays and they think, this is what theatre is supposed to be.

Indecent, a Studio 180 Theatre production. Onstage at the CAA Theatre, 651 Yonge Street, Oct. 14 to Nov. 6, 2022. For tickets, visit mirvish.com or call 1-800-461-3333

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This is what theatre is supposed to be: How Paula Vogels Indecent remembers a century of dramatic censorship - Toronto Star

Plaintiffs to Seek Depositions of Top Biden Administration Officials in Big Tech Censorship Case – The Epoch Times

Plaintiffs in a case charging that the Biden administration was deeply involved in censoring users across Big Tech platforms are preparing to ask a judge to allow them to depose top government officials.

The Republican attorneys general of Missouri and Louisiana said on Oct. 10 that they will file a motion soon asking U.S. District Judge Terry Doughty,a Trump appointee overseeing the case, for the depositions.

The plaintiffs have provided an initial list of people they want to depose to the Department of Justice, which is representing the government in the case. They said the motion will ask Doughty to greenlight depositions of a number of key defendants, according to a statement fromMissouri Attorney General Eric Schmitts office.

A spokesman for Schmitt, who brought the case with Louisiana Attorney General Jeff Landry, declined to provide more details.

The most well-known defendants are President Joe Biden, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre, Surgeon General Vivek Murthy, Health Secretary Xavier Becerra, presidential adviser Dr. Anthony Fauci, and Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas.

The case was filed earlier this year, and discovery produced after Doughty rejected the administrations attempt to get the case dismissed bolstered the evidence of Big Techgovernment collusion, including a series of exchanges between White House and Facebook officials concerning cracking down on users who posted alleged misinformation about COVID-19 vaccines.

While 20 officials or agencies were named as defendants in an earlier version of the case, an updated complaint filed on Oct. 6identified 47 more, including the FBI, the Food and Drug Administration, and Rob Flaherty, a White House deputy assistant.

Messages showed Flaherty pressuring Facebook workers to step up content moderation, leading to meetings between Facebook and the White House.

We remain concerned about mis -and -disinformation [sic] on feed and in groups, and the wide reach of hesitancy-inducing content across your platform, Flaherty wrote in one message to a Facebook employee, whose name was redacted.

Additionally, Facebook began steering regular reports to Flaherty and other White House officials outlining how many posts were deleted, labeled, or demoted for violating COVID-19 and vaccine policies.

Missouri and Louisiana filed a landmark lawsuit, seeking to expose that the federal government has worked hand-in-hand with social media companies to censor freedom of speech on their platforms. Our lawsuit has done exactly thatweve found a staggering censorship enterprise that extends to a multitude of federal agencies and implicates government officials at the highest levels of government, but were not done yet, Schmitt said in a statement.

Now, weve added 47 additional defendants to our lawsuit, including several FBI agents and more top-ranking White House officials. Were also asking the Court to allow our offices to take depositions to question these officials under oath. Were only just getting started.

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Zachary Stieber covers U.S. and world news for The Epoch Times. He is based in Maryland.

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Plaintiffs to Seek Depositions of Top Biden Administration Officials in Big Tech Censorship Case - The Epoch Times

Spotlight: The Group Exhibition Sensitive Content Focuses on the Past and Future of Censorship in Art – artnet News

Every month, hundreds of galleries add newly available works by thousands of artists to the Artnet Gallery Networkand every week, we shine a spotlight on one artist or exhibition you should know. Check out what we have in store, and inquire for more with one simple click.

What You Need to Know: Unit London presents Sensitive Content, a group show featuring artists that have all dealt with censorship in one form or another in their careersdue either to confronting taboos or expressing progressive views and attitudes on themes such as sex and politics in their work. The exhibition, which is open through October 16, 2022, and runs concurrently with Frieze London, is curated by art historians Alayo Akinkugbe and Maria Elena Buszek with artist Helen Beard, who has work included in the exhibition. Surveying censored artworks and artworks that address censorship from the 1940s through today, the show features work by 19 artistsfrom Betty Tompkins to Pussy Riotand a full range of media, including painting, collage, photography, video, and more.

Why We Like It: Art plays a special role in the advancement of cultural norms and progressive ideals, and as such it is often the target of those who seek to preserve the status quo. Sensitive Content spotlights the art and artists that boldly confront and challenge pervasive preconceived notions around subjects like sex, identity, government power, and more. Even censorship itself is addressed, such as in the work of Mauro C. Martinez. Tapping into the social-media vernacular, in Sensitive Content No. 34 (2022), Martinez overlays a sexually explicit image with Instagrams widely recognizable sensitive content warning, which blurs the image until users click See Photo. Renee Coxs Yo Mamas Last Supper (1996) depicts the last supper with 12 Black apostles and the nude artist herself in the place of Jesus, a criticism of the Catholic churchs domination by white men. Shown at the Brooklyn Museum in 2001, then New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani decried its exhibition and called for a commission to be appointed to enforce decency standards. Together, the works shown in Sensitive Content offer historical and contemporary vantages of the ways censorship has and can affect creative expressionand the ways artists are pushing back.

According to the Gallery: The work in this exhibition tracks what has and hasnt changed in terms of objectionable imagery since the rise of post-World War II civil rights movements. Whether blocked by government censors or A.I., the artists chosen for exhibition in Sensitive Content have all faced censorship in their careersnot necessarily due to the prurient or agitational nature of their work, but more often because their marginalized perspectives on sex, beauty, and politics confuse or threaten the dominant narratives on these topics. Maria Elena Buszek, co-curator

See inside the exhibition below.

Installation view of Sensitive Content (2022). Courtesy of Unit London.

Installation view of Sensitive Content (2022). Courtesy of Unit London.

Installation view of Sensitive Content (2022). Courtesy of Unit London.

Installation view of Sensitive Content (2022). Courtesy of Unit London.

Sensitive Content is on view at Unit London through October 16, 2022.

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Spotlight: The Group Exhibition Sensitive Content Focuses on the Past and Future of Censorship in Art - artnet News

The censor cannot hold: The pressure of controlling China’s internet – The Japan Times

As a teenager in rural China, Zeng Jiajun used his internet know-how to watch a banned documentary on the bloody military crackdown in Tiananmen Square.

A decade later, he was part of the sprawling censorship machine that suffocates Chinas cyberspace, tasked with stopping the spread of anything the Chinese Communist Party does not want its people to know about.

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The censor cannot hold: The pressure of controlling China's internet - The Japan Times

WiFi Money working with conservative businesses to ‘beat censorship’ on social media platforms – Fox Business

Evercore ISI Senior Managing Director Mark Mahaney discusses Amazon's stock performance, retailers and consumer habits.

EXCLUSIVE: Entrepreneurs and co-founders of WiFi Money Chris Frederick and Alex Moeller are working with conservative businesses to "beat censorship" on social media platforms, and to ensure they can amplify and monetize their products in an ever-evolving digital world.

Frederick and Moeller co-founded WiFi Money at the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic, as traditional businesses began to close due to COVID-19 lockdowns.

"The reason we started WiFi Money was because we started to see a shift in what was happeningnot only in the business world, but in the world in general," Moeller, the president of WiFi Money told FOX Business. "All of these people were struggling and out of jobs, and we thought, we need to find a way to really help people make money in the online world."

SMALL BUSINESS MUST TAP INTO TECH FOR LONG-TERM SUCCESS: VERIZON BUSINESS MARKETS PRESIDENT

Frederick, the CEO of WiFi Money, and a professional soccer player, told FOX Business that they have worked with more than 8,700 businesses since the inception of WiFi Money in 2020.

WiFi Money works with businesses to amplify their footprint on social media platforms. (WiFi Money)

Frederick explained that WiFi Money works with businesses to monetize at a "higher level by amplifying their services online."

"Through collaboration, through influence and public figures, we help them expose what they have offline to the online world," Frederick told FOX Business. "We help small businesses amplify their products and services to reach unlimited peoplethere is no ceiling."

WiFi Money typically works with businesses on social media platforms like Instagram and YouTube. However, Frederick said that some of those businesses have complained about Big Tech censorship.

MUSK SAYS TRUMP'S TRUTH SOCIAL 'EXISTS BECAUSE TWITTER CENSORED FREE SPEECH'

"I am definitely against censorship. I do not agree with it. I dont think it should be something that is allowed, and, essentially, what we do specifically with our businesses is two things: we remind the businesses that unless their business is in politics, they need to remember that their social media is 100% business, not personal," Moeller explained. "A lot of people, where they make mistakes, is they treat their business page as a personal page, and forget they are trying to build a business."

Moeller added, though, that these businesses "feel they are being censored."

WHY INSTAGRAM ASKS USERS TO CREATE SECOND ACCOUNTS

Frederick told FOX Business that the majority of businesses they work with are conservative businesses "seeking our help."

"We consider ourselves a conservative company," Frederick said. "I dont agree with Big Tech censorship and I think they have lost their markets. Social media is trying to control the reach of the people who made them who they are."

WiFi Money co-founders Chris Frederick (right) and Alex Moeller (left) started their company at the beginning of the COVID pandemic.

Frederick said that Big Tech companies "have lost the true markthe people and the reach of the people that were able to boost them to begin with."

"And now they are trying to limit them," Frederick said.

As for censorship, Frederick told Fox Business that "when you create interaction, it helps boost the algorithm."

"We have come up with ways to beat censorship and allow conservative businesses to be able to excel at a higher rate than they are now," Frederick said.

INSTAGRAM ROLLS BACK CHANGES AFTER KIM KARDASHIAN, KYLIE JENNER RIP APP

"Over the years, these platforms have made it harder and harder for average individuals to have any reach on the platform, unless you pay them money," Moeller explained. "We teach these businesses and individuals how to organically make money from heir social media.

Moeller added: "Communication is the most powerful tool."

"Our brand continues to explode and grow online," Lavallee said, adding that WiFi Money is "a big part of our recipe for success. (Apple / Fox News)

"I tell people that if you can build a successful relationship, then you can build a very successful business," Frederick said. "Essentially, they are the same thing."

One business that has used WiFi Money to grow online is "The Cake Girl"a custom bakery located in Tampa, Florida.

Kristina Lavallee opened her first brick and mortar location in June 2019, but when the COVID-19 pandemic began, "The Cake Girl" began shipping products nationwide.

"Chris and Alex, with their social media expertise, were able to continue to help our brand shine and elevate our presence all over the USA," Lavallee told Fox Business.

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"The Cake Girl" has more than 100,000 followers on Instagram, and is continuing to grow its online presence.

"Our brand continues to explode and grow online," Lavallee said, adding that WiFi Money is "a big part of our recipe for success."

Meanwhile, Moeller said WiFi Money helps businesses to understand what their goals are, and designs plans to execute those goals in an online space.

READ MORE FROM FOX BUSINESS

"Weve learned that one person cant talk to 1 million people," Frederick told FOX Business. "But one post can reach 1 million people."

"We are remaining true to what we teach, which is being present in the online space," Moeller said. "We dont know whats going to happen in the next year, or two years, or four years in this country, and we have just realized that the best way to do business is to do it online."

He added: "We have learned that doing business online is really the most effective way of making money right now."

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WiFi Money working with conservative businesses to 'beat censorship' on social media platforms - Fox Business

The Right Response to Mandates, Propaganda and Censorship – The Epoch Times

In this interview, Dr. Meryl Nass shares astonishing figures on the blatant PCR testing and case count frauds that occurred during the pandemic.

The manipulation of data and testing during the COVID-19 pandemic was done intentionally to create fear in the population, driving them to accept the experimental COVID-19 jabs that were now learning are both dangerous and ineffective at stopping transmission.

In the above episode of the Childrens Health Defense Against the Wind program,1Dr. Meryl Nass, a board-certified internal medicine physician with special expertise in vaccine safety and vaccine mandates, shares some astonishing figures on the blatant testing fraud that occurred including the fact that 281 tests for COVID-19 have received emergency use authorization (EUA) by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, but not one has received approval. This means their manufacturers have zero liability if the tests dont work.

The platforms behind COVID-19 shots were already in the works well before the pandemic. They were just waiting for the opportunity to go mainstream. COVID provided that, Nass said:2

The powers that be, and I cant identify who they are, but powers in Washington this is probably some combination of federal, regulatory and research agencies like Tony Fauci and Francis Collins and officials at the FDA and CDC they have been looking for new, what they call, platforms of vaccines.

They dont want to make vaccines with eggs; it takes a long time, its expensive, they want something faster, and messenger RNA or DNA vaccines is another platform

For some reason the mRNA platform was extremely delicious for our regulators and for industry. So there were many startups, Moderna being one of them. Modernas whole reason for being is to develop messenger RNA gene therapy products either for cancer or for genetic diseases or, later, when those didnt work out for them, they turned to vaccines.

And these companies BioNTech is another one have gotten huge grants from governments as well as entities like the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. So the Gates Foundation in 2019, the year before the pandemic, invested $50 million in BioNTech. And Tony Fauci has been working with the Moderna company on messenger RNA vaccines for quite a while. So these were platforms waiting for an excuse to make a product.

Moderna, together with the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), sent mRNA coronavirus vaccine candidates to the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill on December 12, 2019, before the pandemic raising significant red flags.3

December 18, 2020 about one year after the material transfer agreement was signed the FDA issued emergency use authorization for Modernas COVID-19 vaccine for use in individuals 18 years of age and older.4

Problems with testing began almost immediately after the pandemic began. In the beginning, only tests from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention were allowed, and the tests were virtually meaningless, as asymptomatic people were plagued by false positives. Host Dr. Paul Thomas described it as an epidemic of positive test results that got translated into an epidemic of the infection.5According to Nass:6

For the first two months of the pandemic, the CDC only offered its own test, and it knew very early on that its test didnt work so the SARS-CoV-2 infection spread throughout the U.S. during January, February and early March of 2020, when CDC only allowed a few hundred people, maybe 1,000 people during that period of time, to be tested with their tests. And they all had to have a clinical picture that almost proved they had COVID.

After the whole country was really frustrated with this, FDA did two remarkable things in the beginning of March, Stephen Hahn, the [now former] FDA commissioner, said OK, were going to now allow other entities universities, labs, anybody who has developed or can develop a test for COVID to do so, and send us the paperwork and well work really fast to get it done and allow your tests to get out there.

The paperwork, however, was so complicated that it took companies a week to complete it. By then it was the middle of March 2020 and there were still only a few tests available in the entire U.S.

So then Stephen Hahn did something else. He said, OK, anyone who has a test for COVID, you start using it, you put it out there. You can start testing people, youre allowed you send us the paperwork in a few weeks.7At this point, testing basically turned into a free for all, with tests from China, Germany and other countries overseas coming in.

As of Nass latest count, the FDA has given emergency use authorization to 281 different PCR tests for COVID-19. Not a single one has been approved or licensed.

This means, under emergency use authorization, you cant sue the manufacturer if your test is no good,Nass said.And that means FDA doesnt have to stand by any of those authorizations no ones responsible. So thats a disaster. Theyve also authorized about 50 antibody tests and other rapid tests. So we have a testing mess, and weve always had a testing mess.8

The CDC also created an odd set of case definitions for COVID-19, basically turning a positive test into a positive diagnosis even if you didnt have symptoms. The case definitions, Nass said, were so complicated they required reading through several pages of information and included whether or not the person was in an area were COVID-19 was present, whether the person had had an exposure to a known COVID case and a list of symptoms that helped formulate the definition.

She continued, Despite all that, a positive PCR test was labeled a probable case. Thats all you really needed. And then the CDC relabeled probable cases as cases. So as everybody else has noticed, that meant we had a case-endemic. We didnt exactly have an epidemic.9

The number of people who actually had and/or died from COVID in the beginning of the pandemic is unknown, because everybody who died with COVID was labeled a COVID-caused death. Health officials could count deaths from unrelated causes even gunshots10and motorcycle accidents11 as COVID-19 deaths if the person had the virus within the last 30 days. According to Nass:12

At the beginning, the number of cases, the number of people who died with COVID everybody who died with COVID was called a COVID-caused death, and that was again due to the CDC playing with their definitions and hand coding all of their COVID deaths and requiring doctors, even if you went into the hospital with a heart attack and then they tested you in the hospital, you wound up being labeled a COVID death.

Hospitals had every reason to go along with the questionable labels, as they earned more money if they diagnosed COVID-19 more often. They didnt even need a positive test to do so. The end result is that the actual number of COVID-19 cases was heavily skewed and it may be impossible to sort out the real figures at this point:13

Hospitals were financially incentivized to up the number of COVID cases because they got paid more if their patients had a COVID diagnosis. And they were told by the CDC that they didnt even need a positive test. If it looked like a COVID case, you could call it a COVID case and then up your reimbursement. So we were all stuck with that kind of shenanigans, and its hard to know now who were the COVID cases and who were the COVID deaths.

This means all the numbers of COVID deaths you hear being bandied about by mainstream are major misinformation. They are nothing more than cleverly inflated statistics based on the major incentive to identify virtually every death they could as due to SARS-CoV-2. Best estimates are the number of deaths authentically due to COVID are at least half what they say they are.

The CDC released its provisional life expectancy estimates for 2021,14which reveals life expectancy dropped from 77 years in 2020 to 76.1 years in 2021. It was the first time life expectancy dropped two years in a row in 100 years, NPR noted.15The media is, of course, blaming the drop in life expectancy primarily on COVID-19,16largely ignoring the increasingly clear dangers of the COVID-19 shots that were forced on many in the U.S. and throughout the world.

As mentioned in the last section, the number of COVID deaths are likely half of what the inflated numbers the mainstream claims, which makes their contribution to the decrease in life expectancy essentially irrelevant. What mainstream fails to say in their misinformation coverage is that the average age of those dying of COVID were above the average life expectancy!

According to Nass, mRNA COVID vaccines in the U.S., after you get a shot, for about two or three weeks, your immune system is not as strong as it was, and viruses that are in your body can come out, like the chicken pox virus youre also more susceptible to COVID for the first couple of weeks after a shot.17

After about six months, most of the protection you may have gained from the shot wanes, and then, as time goes on, you get negative immunity, which means youre more susceptible to COVID, she continued. Unfortunately, now were seeing data that youre more susceptible to dying from any cause. Mortality goes up in the vaccinated compared to the unvaccinated.18

When it comes to products issued under emergency use authorization, like COVID-19 shots, theres no liability for the manufacturers or the government officials who recommended them. There hasnt been a single claim that has been adjudicated regarding injuries from the COVID vaccines, Nass said.19This is all part of the scam they have created to protect themselves.

In the U.S., vaccine makers already enjoy full indemnity against injuries occurring from this or any other pandemic vaccine under the Public Readiness and Emergency Preparedness (PREP) Act. If youre injured, youd have to file a compensation claim with the Countermeasures Injury Compensation Program (CICP),20which is funded by U.S. taxpayers via Congressional appropriation to the Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS).

While similar to the National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program (NVICP), which applies to nonpandemic vaccines, the CICP is even less generous when it comes to compensation. The maximum payout you can receive even in cases of permanent disability or death is $250,000 per person.

However, youd have to exhaust your private insurance policy before the CICP gives you a dime.21The CICP also has a one-year statute of limitations, so you have to act quickly, which is also difficult since its unknown if long-term effects could occur more than a year later.

Nass has created a pledge to restore the U.S. and its values,22which will roll out soon and provide a way to speak out against the injustice of vaccine mandates, propaganda and censorship thats run rampant since March 2020. She explained:23

What we have to do is redo the emergency laws in the U.S., and Ive suggested a pledge that we can ask people and candidates to take that will cause legislatures to review emergency rules.

So when an emergency is declared, you only get it for two weeks, if youre a governor or a secretary of health or the president, and then by the end of two weeks the legislature or the Congress has to convene and hold hearings on whether theyre still in an emergency and whether theyve done the right things for that emergency.

The pledge also asks for mandates to be lifted. Its against U.S. law to mandate experimental products and everything under EUA is an investigational, experimental product. Im happy for anyone to be vaccinated or wear masks who wants to, but there should be no mandates for those products.

The pledge also asks to end censorship, the restriction of communication between people, the propagandizing by government and private enterprises and the collusion between government and social media, as well as ban gain-of-function research, which likely contributed to the creation of SARS-CoV-2 in the first place.

The founders paid, in blood, for the freedoms we have, Nass said. And we have a lot of freedoms enshrined in law, but theyve been taken from us under the guise of a pandemic. Now we have to fight with everything weve got to get them back before theyre gone forever.24

Originally publishedSep 23 on Mercola.com

Views expressed in this article are the opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times. Epoch Health welcomes professional discussion and friendly debate. To submit an opinion piece, please follow these guidelines and submit through our form here.

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The Right Response to Mandates, Propaganda and Censorship - The Epoch Times

Vote for the interest of all kids and against censorship – Grand Haven Tribune

Its been around two years since I first wrote in this newspaper, expressing concerns of the efforts of some individuals in our community to ban books, particularly books with LGBTQ content. Originally, that group was Grand Haven Conservative Parents. Then it became Restoring Ottawa. Now many of the individuals associated with this campaign against our schools are active in the local PAC Ottawa Impact.

Ottawa Impact has now released the names of their vetted candidates for school board, and you can tell that there is a direct connection between the efforts to ban books in our schools and the candidacies of Roger Williams, Thomas Hoekstra and Tommy Van Hill.

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About the writer: The Rev. Dr. Jared C. Cramer, Tribune community columnist, serves as rector of St. Johns Episcopal Church in Grand Haven. Information about his parish can be found at http://www.sjegh.com. These opinions are those of him alone as a resident of the community and do not necessarily reflect those of his church or congregation.

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Vote for the interest of all kids and against censorship - Grand Haven Tribune

Gov. Newsom Signs Bill to Censor CA Doctors Accused of Spreading COVID Misinformation – California Globe

California Gov. Gavin Newsom signed AB 2098 by Assemblyman Evan Low (D-Campbell), whichwill punish physiciansand surgeons for unprofessional conduct for advocating for the potential benefits of early treatment with off-label drugs, or those who dare to ask questions about COVID vaccine safety.

Assembly Bill 2098 puts unconstitutional restrictions on free speech by medical professionals. Under AB 2098, doctors will be subject to disciplinary actions by the Medical Board of California and the Osteopathic Medical Board of California if they do not adhere to the approved COVID treatment consensus.

Who approves the consensus, Dr. Peter Mazolewski said last week to the Globe. The medical board? Public health officials? Neither all of the members of the Medical Board nor all of Californias public health officials are licensed medical doctors.

In his signing statement, Gov. Newsom said, To be clear, this bill does not apply to any speech outside of discussions related to Covid-19 treatment within a direct physician patient relationship, as if its constitutional to limit the censorship of doctors to one medical issue. Imagine if doctors were censored over various cancer treatments or heart ailments.

The Governor of the State of California is telling the states licensed physicians that when they are treating a Covid patient, they must remain in the lane of the consensus of the CDC or CDPH treatment protocols.

Laura Powell, founder ofCalifornians for Good Governance explains in a June AB 2098 opposition letter:

There is no question that the bill is aimed at restricting speech based on its content. As such, it would be presumptively invalid and could only be upheld if the government could prove that the law is narrowly tailored to serve a compelling state interest.

Which it does not.

Physicians would be punished simply for doing what they believe is best for their patients, sharing legitimate medical information necessary for their patients to make a true risk/benefit analysis.

The bill is aimed at physicians who acknowledged the 1% mortality rate, questioned mandatory masks, school closures, and challenged the claim that the vaccine would shield patients from getting or spreading Covid. It is also aimed at physicians whochose to prescribe therapeutic treatments during COVID.

Censorship and criminalization are not the bulwarks of a free society, attorney Leigh Dundas said at the AB 2098 protest rally Friday at the State Capitol. The stark reality is if we are to remain a Constitutional Republic, then doctors must remain free to practice medicine.

Science and medicine are constantly evolving by challenging the status quo, Dundas added.

And Dundas warned that if this bill to censor Californias doctors is allowed to stand, guess who is next on the chopping block the press.

Tech entrepreneur Steve Kirsch addressed the AB 2098 protesters Friday. Im labeled a misinformation superspreader, but (Senator) Dr. Pan cant silence me because Im not a doctor.

Its [AB 2098] unconstitutional and anti-science, Kirsch continued. Tenure was created in universities to allow people to speak out without retribution. This is a special law targeted at misinformation for Covid-19, and thats not science.

As Laura Powell noted, The bill does not address the problem identified. The bills authors and supporters point to the problem of doctors who widely amplify falsehoods about Covid-19, but silencing them would violate the Constitution. To remedy the constitutional problems, it would have to be pared down to the point that it would simply duplicate existing law. Proponents are unable to cite a single example of a harm that could be prevented.

As Dr. Pete Mazolewski said, the purpose of Assembly Bill 2098is to circumvent due process against doctors over Covid misinformation conduct.

AB 2098will punish physiciansand surgeons for unprofessional conduct for advocating for the potential benefits of early treatment with off-label drugs, or those who dare to ask questions about COVID vaccine safety.

Does the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention decide approved COVID treatment consensus? EvenCDC Director Rochelle Walensky recently admittedher agencys failures during the COVID-19 pandemic during a message to her staff in August. ABC reported,To be frank, we are responsible for some pretty dramatic, pretty public mistakes. From testing, to data, to communications, Walensky said.

We know there were a lot of problems with the CDC if we speak out right now, we run the risk of losing our licenses, Dr. Mazolewski said.

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Gov. Newsom Signs Bill to Censor CA Doctors Accused of Spreading COVID Misinformation - California Globe

Censorship Was The Spark That Sent Rod Serling To The Twilight Zone – /Film

Considering the show's strong bent towards social justice, it's not too surprising to find that one of the biggest inspirations for the series was the 1955 murder of Emmett Till. Till was aBlack 14-year-old boy who was"abducted, beaten, and shot" while visiting family in Mississippi, and whose killers both white were acquitted of all charges by an all-white jury. It was a tragedy that helped kickstart the civil rights movement, and also inspired Rod Serling to write a teleplay ("Noon on Doomsday") about the racism that led to such a miscarriage of justice unfolding.

Serling was expecting to deal with a lot of pushback and censorship with his script, but was still surprised by how extreme it all turned out to be. He later claimed the story was "gone over with a fine-tooth comb by 30 different people," and that by the time it aired it was basically unrecognizable from the story Serling was trying to tell. As Smithsonian Magazine put it, "Any hint of the South was removed from the plot; not even a Coca-Cola bottle could appear, lest viewers invoke the idea of the region."

The whole thing made Serling rethink his approach to social commentary, and soon after he had the idea for "The Twilight Zone," a show that was about apolitical sci-fi/fantasy concepts on the surface, but often used them as an avenue to explore more controversial ideas. It was through the "Twilight Zone" that Serling managed to get his Emmett Till-inspired story aired on TV: the aforementioned episode "I Am the Night," which is still one of the most memorable episodes of the series.

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Censorship Was The Spark That Sent Rod Serling To The Twilight Zone - /Film

Donald Trump Interview Removed by YouTube Decried as ‘Insane’ Censorship – Newsweek

Conservative figures have accused YouTube of political censorship after the video hosting platform removed an interview with Donald Trump over "misinformation."

In July, the former president appeared on the Clay Travis & Buck Sexton Show, with the interview still available to watch on Facebook and on the podcast's website.

However, the interview has been pulled from YouTube, with a message on the site stating that the video had violated its community guidelines.

In a series of tweets, Travis said YouTube took down the video for "misinformation" without giving further details.

"How does censoring interviews with political leaders aid any voters or democracy itself? This is scary. When have political censors ever been on the right side of history?" Travis tweeted.

"Voters should be able to see everything that any political figure says in public in order to judge for themselves whether they want to support or not support that person. That's democracy itself. YouTube should be ashamed for censoring interviews with any political figure."

Replying to the tweets, Texas GOP Senator Ted Cruz wrote: "This...is...insane."

Trump attorney Jenna Ellis also described the video's removal as "ridiculous," with Sean Davis, co-founder of the conservative website The Federalist, tweeting: "These Big Tech tyrannies have become governments unto themselves. They don't need to be regulated or reined in. They need to be destroyed before they destroy our entire constitutional republic."

It's unclear what prompted YouTube to remove the video.

During the interview, Trump claimed that the 2020 Election was "rigged and stolen" a claim he has made in almost every interview and public appearance for nearly two years now.

As he persisted with the unsubstantiated claims, Trump even expressed concern that the video might be removed.

"No sitting president's ever even come close, and I lost. It was a rigged election," Trump said. "I hope they don't take you off the air, but if they do, please, just delete this, because I don't want to see you guys go off the air."

Elsewhere in the July interview, Trump also appears to suggest that there is a link between the rise of COVID cases in the U.S. and the fact the midterm elections would be taking place in a few months.

"I looked at a map yesterday. It's very interesting. We have an election coming up, and all of a sudden, they're saying COVID is all over the place," Trump said.

When Clay responds that the "midterm variant is certainly spreading," Trump replies: "May have to go to mail-in ballots. Crooked mail-in ballots."

Conspiracy theorists have previously attempted to make the claim that the coronavirus pandemic was a hoax so mail-in voting would have to be brought in for the 2020 Election, making it easier to rig it against Trump.

Conservatives have also frequently spoken out about how so-called "Big Tech" such as Google, Facebook or YouTube reportedly censor right-wing voices in favor of more liberal ones.

YouTube has been contacted for comment.

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Donald Trump Interview Removed by YouTube Decried as 'Insane' Censorship - Newsweek